


karaoke, sisterhood, and worms-on-a-string

by A_Hundred_Jewels



Category: The Penderwicks Series - Jeanne Birdsall
Genre: "baby shark", "before he cheats", "hotel california", "young and beautiful", Because I wanted to, Karaoke, basically no plot, btw yes i know that the technical name for worms on a string is squirmles, cheesy french fries, i guess?, sisterly relationships?, skye drinks wine because i say so, slight feelings of lost childhood, the following songs are featured:, we also have some allusions to the pens on gardam street, worm on a string - Freeform, you can tell i made this take place in 2019 by the movies that are in the theatres
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:49:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Hundred_Jewels/pseuds/A_Hundred_Jewels
Summary: Prompt: KaraokeJane and Skye are home for the summer and they go out to dinner together one night. They find themselves in a karaoke pub after their usual restaurant is closed.Title could be worse but is still not good.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 10
Collections: snazzilton fanfic bingo 2020





	karaoke, sisterhood, and worms-on-a-string

**Author's Note:**

> PART THREE of my contribution to the Snazzilton Fanfic Bingo 2020 event! I am late! I was supposed to finish everything by the 24th! Which I didn't do! Oh well, who cares.
> 
> Anyway. I wrote this. And it could technically be worse. And it made me laugh which was nice. So no regrets, even if it isn't very good. This was supposed to be sort of a character study on Jane, but I didn't really do that. Enjoy, read the tags, and see more notes at the end!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own these characters. Jane and Skye were created by Jeanne Birdsall. 
> 
> <3

The pub gives off a crowded noisy energy that I can feel even before I step inside. Skye, on the other hand, who’s walking behind me, has more of an “I’m mad that you’re dragging me to a karaoke pub” kind of energy. Which I guess is fair. 

In my defense, though, it’s not like I knew that our favourite burger joint was going to be closing early tonight, nor did I know that Selma’s (the pub we’re at now) was going to be the only open place with food in this half of Cameron. 

I think Skye thinks I did, though. I think she thinks that this was all part of my master plan to land us both a karaoke pub on some random night during the summer while she’s visiting Cameron. 

I’d love to call her illogical, but I do love to scheme. 

When we’re inside, we’re greeted by a rainbow-clad waiter and Skye orders her hamburger with cheese and peppers wearing a look of irritation reminiscent of any time I’ve tried to explain the plot of, say, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. 

I feel sort of bad for the waiter and try to be extra friendly when I’m getting my veggie burger and cheesy french fries. 

Someone’s singing a slightly out of tune cover of “Young and Beautiful.” Skye keeps rolling her eyes. 

“Anything to drink?” the waiter asks. I nod and ask for apple cider. Skye gets wine. Of course she does. For some reason, both she and Rosy like it and I cannot fathom why. I’ll drink it, I guess. But it tastes weird. 

The rainbow waiter leaves and I watch the person singing right now. “Young and Beautiful” finished and now its “Hotel California” sung in a rather fantastic soprano. Batty would either love this or hate it. 

“Sorry Skye,” I say, as the singer (a woman I frequently see in the park) belts out the chorus. “I know you don’t like this.”

“I do not.”

“We can leave right after we eat. I think the movie theater is still showing the new Secret Life of Pets movie.”

Skye groans, but she’s smiling a little. “As if I didn’t already see that four times with Lydia?”

“Would you prefer Dora and the Lost City of Gold? Because I think that’s our only other option and I’ve seen it twice and it’s a level of strangeness that I don’t think you’ll appreciate.”

“Like your earrings?” Skye folds her arms.

“Batty made them for me!” I lean forward and the orange and green worm-on-a-string earrings swing with me. I twirl the orange one around my finger. “Also, how could you not love these?” 

The rainbow waiter brings us our drinks and Skye thanks them, still laughing at me and my fluffy worms. “Fine, lets see the Dora movie. I’m morbidly curious.”

At that moment the “Hotel California” singer lets out a particularly high note. Skye scrunches up her nose and takes a swig of her wine. She makes another face and swallows slowly, like its painful, almost. I give her a funny look. 

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine. I just forgot that hardly anyone in Cameron has good wine.”

“Really?” Maybe that’s why I don’t like wine. 

“To me, I guess. God.” Skye looks down at her wine glass. “I really don’t live here anymore.”

My chest feels funny. “Yes you do! Your half of the room is still clean. My stuff is still on my side. And the guy at Antonio’s still knows who you are.”

Skye shrugs. I continue. “I don’t still live at home, usually, and I still live here.”

“Yeah, but you only moved one town over. You’re here all the time. And you live at home right now.”

I don’t know what to say to that. It’s true. I spent the year in an apartment with my friend Eliza until the summer when she moved to Maine and I didn’t have enough money to stay in the apartment by myself. Then I moved home and tried not to feel weird about it. 

“Yeah, I guess.” I drink some cider. 

“That’s not a bad thing,” Skye says. “You’re still an adult. Just with your family. Like, um, the Weasleys.”

I laugh, despite myself. “Not really.”

“Oh, shit, do they die? You’re not going to die. I mean, not right now. Shit.”

“Skye.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” And it is. I’m laughing even more now. I take another drink of apple cider, let the fizz warm me all over. 

“I’m going to sing,” I say. 

Skye looks up at me, alarmed. “No!” she says. “Jane why.”

“It’ll be fun,” I say. “Life is short. Dear sister, I am called to my duty, to the duty of everyone I love. My heart has been deemed useless, so I must fill it with love.”

Skye squints. “Is that a line from ‘Sisters and Sacrifice?’”

Silence. 

I am engulfed in a flashback to when I spoke that shitty shitty line as Rainbow to Melissa Patenaude, who was a deeply uncomfortable eleven-year old at the time, sweating in the stage lights. 

“No.” I gulp down some more apple cider. “Anyway. I’m going to go up there and sing and it will be terrible and glorious and we’ll be forever banned.”

Skye rolls her eyes, but looks slightly joyful at the thought of being forever banned. At that moment, our burgers come and I have no choice but to be distracted by cheesy fries and trying to put some in the burger to compliment the beans in the veggie burger and where’s the mustard and Skye can I have your tomato. 

Passing my her tomato slices, Skye nods, amusedly. “Okay, Jane. You go sing. But, just in case we get banished, let me eat first.”

I nod. As long as I have cheesy fries, I have absolutely no problem with that. Pretending not to wince at the group of very drunk grown adults singing “Baby Shark” onstage, I take another bite of my burger. 

\--------

Twenty minutes later, I’m standing on the low, scuffed stage of Selma’s. My worms-on-a-string are swinging wildly. My voice sounds like that of a scared sheep.

And I’m loving it. 

“I DUUUUG MY KEY INTO THE SIDE OF HIS PRETTY LITTLE SOUPED UP FOUR WHEEL DRIVE!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Skye look like she’s trying to shrink. She’s stuck between wishing we weren’t related and pissing herself laughing. That’s kind of the way I like it. 

“CARVED MY NAME INTO HIS LEATHER SEEEEEEEATS”

And so I keep singing. Keep shrieking. I’m alive and I dance, though death is always looming. 

Looking Skye in the eyes, I pause before the next verse. 

I smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi again!
> 
> You did it! You read this! 
> 
> Anyway, I wanted to mention two things. The first is that the line Jane says that's "from Sisters and Sacrifice" is not from The Penderwicks on Gardam Street. I made it up.
> 
> The second is that I got "I'm alive and I dance, though death is always looming" from the disastrous poem that Jane is mentioned to have written the last time she and Skye swapped homework in Gardam Street. 
> 
> (Gardam Street used to be my favourite of the Penderwicks books and I've read it far too many times).
> 
> Anyway, thank you so much for reading! PLEASE leave a comment!! I love validation!


End file.
